What is this all for, James?

While Jake Sully and his family grieve for the losses from their last battle, war escalates as Quaritch allies with the violent Ash Clan.

Three hours and fifteen minutes, summarised in a single sentence. I want to get on board with what director James Cameron is doing with Avatar, I really do… But I simply cannot any more.
With Oona Chaplin joining the burgeoning cast as Ash Clan leader Varang, this is a direct sequel to 2022’s The Way of Water. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Jack Champion, and all the others return to their roles. I had my concerns about the story writing for this series before… Is there any more hope to be found among the ashes?

No.

Firstly, it bears repeating that I enjoyed the first Avatar, back in 2009. It was an original idea, beautiful to look at. It was enough. The Way of Water contaminated my belief with some hokey narrative decisions made to drive a plot forward. Now, with Fire and Ash, we can see where this narrative is heading. I’m sorry, but tell me if this sounds familiar at all:

We follow Jake, Neytiri, as their family are hunted down by Colonel Quaritch. While human interference continues to poach Pandora’s whale-like creatures, Quaritch personal obsession leads him to ally with the Ash Clan of na’vi. He trades weapons with them in exchange for recovering his son, Spider. Meanwhile, Kiri has a weird connection with the planet, and Lo’ak grieves for his brother and the whales.

Asides from the Ash Clan, and Kiri’s spiritual power becoming more honed, this is basically The Way of Water again. The whales are still being poached by the same characters (they survived, apparently) and the finale is… once again… a big battle with hydrofoil battleships. Including rescuing family members from a burning/sinking wreck.
Maybe I was misled, but I really expected these films to be distinctly different from each other. They are tenuously plotted tech demos; surely the purpose is to show new graphics and techniques. Expand the world of Pandora. But this is, in its broad strokes, just more of the same.

But my biggest gripe with Fire and Ash, is the editing. The film’s editing is terrible. When it isn’t tent pole action sequences (such as the finale) scenes are shredded and interwoven needlessly. One scene has Spider (Jack Champion) captured, and undergoing some pretty nasty experiments. Cut to Jake’s family in the forest. Okay, so we are going to rescue Spider now, from this terrible fate? No, immediately cut again, back to Spider, who’s now on a treadmill and making grumpy faces at the doctors like he’s okay, actually.

The script is pure function. This film has five writer credits. Five. It does not show on the screen. Dialogue is usually a collection of short comments. “You should go here because this”, “You think this because that”, “They are doing this because that”. It is incredibly shallow, and the film’s editing is so rapid that we can’t settle down and empathise enough. Which is baffling, considering the amount of technology and money it takes to make these aliens emote.

It also doesn’t help that characters like Quaritch came back from the dead in the previous movie. Or that characters can easily talk to the dead. It makes everything feel extremely weightless and meaningless.

This will probably see a significant drop-off of Avatar movie box office. The combination of rehashed action scenes, boring writing, and a molasses-paced narrative.

Which leads, worryingly, into the positives.
Stephen Lang as the Colonel is one of the better features here. We finally see interaction between, and (crucially) exposition about, him and Spike. It only took three hours of cinema to get there. But it was good to finally see. Also, weirdly, I felt more empathy for the whales in this film than I did in the previous one. You know, that film in which they were the sole focus.

The newest addition of Varang, played by Oona Chaplin, was a blessing. She was the one exciting, interesting element that threatened to push the narrative forward. Basically a cult leader who really likes guns and burning stuff. Subjecting her followers to hallucinogens and scalping enemies. There’s agency and drive here that suggests something of substance would happen. It didn’t. But it felt like it sometimes.

It still looks pretty. I wouldn’t recommend 3D (again, baffling) if you are paying the ticket price, it isn’t worthwhile. It is still going to have the choppy editing regardless. I simply don’t know who these films are for any more; I cannot imagine watching these back to back.

Additional Marshmallows: Just watch this trailer and ask yourself: “Does this trailer feel awkward?” If you find the answer is yes, you will have experienced the whole 3-hour movie.